A Peterborough food truck owner is thinking about adding vegan meals. She could simply guess — or she could find out. Adding a new menu costs money for ingredients, equipment, and training, so a wrong guess is expensive. Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of information to help a business make better marketing decisions. It is how the first step of the marketing process — understanding customers — actually gets done.
The Research Process
- Define the problem and research objectives — state exactly what you need to know. "Will enough customers buy a vegan meal at $12 to make it worth adding?" is far more useful than "Do people like vegan food?"
- Plan the research — decide what information is needed, whether existing (secondary) data can answer it, and which primary methods to use, and whom to ask.
- Collect the data — carry out the surveys, focus groups, or observations, or gather the secondary sources.
- Analyze and interpret the data — organize results into counts, percentages, and themes, and look for patterns.
- Present findings and act — report what was found, make recommendations, and use them to make the decision.
Primary vs. Secondary Research
- Uses information that already exists, collected for another purpose
- Sources: Statistics Canada census data, industry reports, news articles, the business's own past sales records
- Fast and inexpensive, so it is usually done first
- May be out of date or not specific to your exact question
- New information collected first-hand for the current problem
- Methods: surveys, focus groups, interviews, observation, experiments
- Specific, current, and owned by the business
- Takes more time and money to collect
Qualitative vs. Quantitative Data
| Qualitative | Quantitative | |
|---|---|---|
| Answers | Why? How do people feel? | How many? How much? How often? |
| Form of data | Words, opinions, descriptions, images | Numbers, counts, percentages, ratings |
| Typical methods | Focus groups, in-depth interviews, open-ended questions | Surveys with closed questions, sales data, web analytics |
| Sample size | Small groups, explored in depth | Large groups, so results can be generalized |
| Example result | "The vegan options feel too expensive for lunch." | 62% of respondents would buy a vegan meal at least once a week. |
Primary Research Methods
| Method | How it works | Strength | Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Survey | A set of questions answered by many people online, on paper, by phone, or in person | Reaches many people; easy to turn into numbers | People may rush, skip questions, or not answer honestly |
| Focus group | A moderator leads a discussion with a small group (often 6 to 10 people) | Rich detail about feelings and reasons | Small group may not represent everyone; loud members can sway others |
| Observation | Researchers watch what people actually do, in person or through data like website clicks | Shows real behaviour, not what people say they do | Does not explain why people act that way |
| Experiment (test market) | Change one thing, such as price or a display, and measure the result | Shows cause and effect | Can be costly and competitors may notice |
Sampling
The population is the entire group you want to learn about — for example, every lunchtime customer downtown. Asking everyone is usually impossible, so researchers study a sample: a smaller group chosen to represent the population. In a simple random sample, every member of the population has an equal chance of being chosen, which makes the results more trustworthy. A convenience sample uses whoever is easiest to reach, such as your friends or people standing nearby, which is quicker but can create sampling bias — results that do not represent the whole population. Larger, well-chosen samples generally give more reliable results.
Reading Simple Results
Raw counts are hard to compare, so researchers convert them to percentages: divide the count by the total number of responses and multiply by 100. Online, businesses observe behaviour through web analytics. One key measure is the conversion rate: the percentage of website visitors who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. A high number of visitors means little if very few of them convert.